Monday, November 30, 2009

Grace in Small Things

3 of 365
1) Christmas Carols on the piped in music to sing along with.

2) Finding exactly what I'm looking for in the stock room.

3) Two Amazon orders in one day.

4) Southern Comfort Egg Nog! (Hooray!!) at Kroger's. (boo Walmart).

5) Cat sleeping in my lap in yellow checkered blanket.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

2 of 365

Grace in small things

1) Good laugh about cat sitting on the back porch of the new neighbor - who owns a dog!

2) Finally making the telephone call I have been creading for some time and it turned out OK.

3) Reading "just one more chapter" while lounging on the bed - just like I did as a kid in my upstairs bedroom with the pink walls and the deep burgundy rug.

4) Being told that I am #2 in sales for the week, #1 for the month. I modestly say that it is a group effort but inwardly my heart is doing the dance of joy.

5) Aspercreme - what a great invention!

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Grace in Small Things

One of 365...

1) White fences of central Kentucky

2) Kentucky almost beating Tennessee in over time

3) My sister understanding when I shouted "You're like Cartman singing "O Holy Night"!! Who knew!" (talking about her prowess at Corn Hole!)

4) My mother finishing up the grace before the meal by saying, "And thank you for food, friends and family...and everything that begins with the letter F" ... a one beat of astonishment at the table and then snickering and then laughter and then.."Football!" "Fruit"...etc. etc. etc. (though we were all thinking one thing...) and she clarifies, "Good things that begin with the letter F.."

5) Family together

Sunday, November 15, 2009

All the time in the World

My hubs went to Memphis for several days beginning last week. Last Tuesday. The few days stretched into a few more and now he will return tomorrow. it has been like a mini vacation! Only I am the only one to feed and let the cat out in the middle of the night.

When he left last week I thought, Oh Boy! I can lay around and read as much as I want and eat what I want and no fighting over the tv programs!

The reality is this, I started a book I could not get into...Little, Big. I am just not much of a "fantasy" fan. I enjoyed the imagery of the prose (...His hat looked as if it had been in a fight....) but I could not for the life of me get interested in the story. I would begin to read and find myself asleep. So much for reading.

I made my current favorite dish, Chicken Pot Pie. I have discovered the joy of using my eight inch iron skillet as a pie pan! Golly gosh (this is how I cuss these days because of my career at the People Pleasing family oriented Biscuit Barrel and their three strikes you're out cussing policy)it makes for a flaky crust! I might buy another one just for fruit pies! Anyway, something happened to my broth. I'm not certain what I did, maybe not enough chicken stock and onions. I used the Barefoot Contessa recipe as a guide instead of just winging it. It did not have the usual "Hamburgers! that's good!" kick to it that it always has when Joe is around.

And I thought I would breeze through a project I have been working on, off and on, for several months on the computer. Guess what? Never looked at it.

What I have done is sleep a lot, eat a lot and not read a lot. Download a ton of music from the MP3 program and work a lot of extra hours. And not care a fig about tv. (Anyone watching Survivor? I love that guy Russel from New Orleans. What a peacock!)

And it all ends tomorrow. I have missed him. Life is sweeter with him around, if not more hectic and demanding.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Farmer in the Dell

Early to bed and early to rise makes a person healthy wealthy and just a plain old bore.

Actually, the damn three legged cat begins walking across my chest around 3am. And he is heavy! I am able to steal another 50 or so minutes of sleep before giving in and feeding that lard ass cat and then letting him out into the neighborhood which is his jungle.

It's 4am and I am awake. I like the very early hours. It's quiet and I feel like I am the only one awake....besides the farmers.

A lovely quiet. A delicious quiet.

I did a short four hour stint at Biscuit Bucket yesterday and not much happening of the unusual sort. A kid with a broken foot hobbling around on one of those foot boots, "What happened?" I asked as I have found people love to talk about their injuries, and since she was a young kid of about nine I added, "Did you kick a boy?" She laughed and told me she was going to tell everyone from now on that's what happened because it sounded better than tripping over her wiener dog.

The only other good action happened over by the Alan Jackson display. A young couple had taken the hat (Stetson knock off for $49.99. You too can look like Alan Jackson!) and she was taking a picture of him with her cell phone.

I swooped down on them and slipped one of the red and black cowboy ostentatious shirts with embroidery and snaps galore and said, "Here, slip this on, put the hat back on and hold up the back of the CD! " I was recreating the back cover. "Tilt your head down. You will look just like Alan Jackson." They loved it! "Are you sure we can do this?" I looked all around and put my finger to my lips, "We won't tell the sales person on duty what you are up to."

"Brilliant Face Book photo!" he laughed, "Now, who is Alan Jackson?"

They were not from around these parts. I laughed, they laughed and the older couple standing in the clearance corner laughed.

"You're next!" I called to them.

The older couple ended up buying several John Deere head gear hats.

I'm good.

Friday, November 13, 2009

In The Groove

I have about twenty minutes to kill before heading into work and I thought I would dust off the keyboard.

I meet the most interesting people on a daily basis at Biscuit Bucket. On the whole, very nice folk, but there are those who are a bit testy. I love hearing the stories that pop out of their mouths. The type of stories that you tell perfect stangers that you will never see again. Probably, you hope, never again.

It's my job to entice people to at the very least consider looking at our merchandise. I talk to everyone. Men or women, young or old, angry or sad. You just never know who will respond and in which way.

Headed on thier way out the door last evening I thanked an older couple for dining with us and that hopefully on the next trip they would look at our new Alan Jackson stuff! She turned to me and began to tell me all about her trying day. She went to town to find wall paper. Did I know they don't sell wall paper anywhere in this town?!! (It does not surprise me, the town with no used book store nor a Fresh Market). And that she went to Walmart because a friend had told her that she bought a do-hickey that you put around your pie edges and it prevented them from burning. No one had heard of such thing at the Walmart!!! The they went to the doctor and found out they both had high cholesterol!! High cholesterol!! And she can't take the medication! Fish oil pills! Can't take those either (try freezing them and then taking them! "Does it work? No burping back up the ...fish?" "Guaranteed!")

"Have a nice evening. Maybe you will find something nice the next time you come back in."

"I doubt it, he is tight as a tick! Never should have married him. Hummphhh" and out the door she went, a full five minutes behind him. He was probably revving the engine and restraining himself from tapping on the horn.

Everyday I have three or four encounters like the one above. People just spill their guts to me. I should write a book!

Monday, November 09, 2009

Autumn of your Life crisis

My dreams have been multi-faceted, richly textured, incredibly entertaining, all in living color as of late. My mother is young and handing my younger sister (who is a baby of about two) a Pez candy dispenser in the form of Bozo the Clown. My father, also young, is smiling from a passing car. There is my old grammar school friend, Flea, running down a dark street that is pocked with spectacular glass shards as he calls to me to wait for him. I run on pain free knees. I run very fast! I am weaving my way through a bistro, people gathered and laughing, waving interesting cocktails in shades of chartreuse and ruby. I carry a shopping bag. My cell rings and I step out onto a back patio to answer and enter a zoo with swimming dinosaurs and toothy snakes!

I awake, feeling the comfort of my hot-dog bun mattress bed, with my three legged cat lifting his head to gaze lovingly and beseechingly at me (because he knows its about chow time) and I think....

I finally understand! Mid-life crisis!

Since I can put a name on it everything falls into place. Only, I am well past mid-life! So, it's post mid-life crisis. Autumn of my life crisis. Maybe I can accept the condition I find myself in, the circumstances so appalling and so embarrassing...maybe it's time I just close my mind to the "what-ifs" and the "I should haves" to the peace of just being where I am and not fighting it.